Painted Rocks Historic Park, Arizona.

January 26, 2012

Yesterday we drove to about 80 miles from Wellton, AZ to Painted Rocks Historic Park.

Along to way instead of being out on Interstate Highway 8, whenever possible I chose to drive on Old U.S. Highway 80…aka the Ocean To Ocean Highway. In this area of Arizona the old highway parallels the Gila River which in the old days was the major highway for pioneers moving westward to California. Modern man has changed that and it is now just a dribble. You can read about the Gila River by clicking this Wikipedia link…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

From a higher elevation you can see Interstate Highway 8 about 12 miles to the south. You can also see the Gila Riverbed flowing towards the lower left…

This is my second time here. I was first here in January 1996. It’s a lot different from I remember as very remote and quiet…like it was the end of the World. We were the only people here. Not so now. There are about 12 RV’s in the campground and trucks roaring by on a nearby road. Heck, there’s even a four-bar Internet and cell phone signal.

But then, I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday! :)

Now that you know all about the petroglyphs, here are some of the photos I took while there…

These are the two petroglyph hills as seen from our campsite, they are maybe 50 feet high. The hill on the right has the most petroglyphs as it was closer to the Mormon Battalion Trail where all the pioneers such as Kit Carson passed…

Shortly after our arrival we met a local expert. Jerry Ahnert has been studying the trail for 42 years. He gave us about a 1/2 hour seminar about the history of the trail which also served the Butterfield Overland Mail Company.

In the above photo, he told us the white skull marked the actual trail…even though there were no signs identifying it. We presume it’s to keep it from being stolen.

Turning 180 degrees and looking west…this is what the trail looks like today…

He has written a book entitled “The Butterfield Trail And Overland Mail Company of Arizona, 1858-1861. It presents a very detailed of the history of the 400 mile portion of the trail in Arizona. Mary bought his book for $29.95. To order you can contact him at nobottomgulch@yahoo.com.

Here are some other photos that I took…

And finally…a panorama sunset shot. The two petroglyph hills are to the right of the motorhome and above the Bronco…

And finally finally…a cloudless desert sunset with a jet plane exhaust trail, a quarter moon and the planet Venus in the background…